I was recently asked if I had a breakup story to share.
This is the story –

When I would close my eyes and think of her, I would see her smile. It forms ever so slowly to where her eyes squint softly, her cheeks begin to glow, and then the tiniest of dimples appear as if to remind you that there is indeed pure beauty in this world.

Angelic elegance.

Her smile more than plants your feet on the ground because it’s made up of empathy, compassion, and the type of selfless love that tells you that you are home.

If you don’t smile when she smiles, you have no heart. Her smile could make your heart ache with comfort.

In this moment she wasn’t smiling.

Her eyes looking down. I was in front of her as she was in front of me. The lady’s back leaning against the wall of her bed, while I sat idle on a stool in the middle of her room.

The only noise that could be heard was a sniffle from her nose, the pensive scratching from my nails, and the lamp’s bulbs radiating energy from being on for too long.

I’m not going to lie, I was going to write a blogpost called “Being a Superstar Is the Biggest Lie Companies Tell You to Be”

There is a mantra that floats around startup culture and corporate America in general… “if you don’t own the company, you should work late, outwork your co-workers, soak up soak up knowledge from others. Be the positive energy, make good contacts, and be the person ppl remember. Make the most out of it – grow.”

What I’ve learned these last year and four months is this…

I find that mantra to be filled with lies.

Much of what was said doesn’t matter.

If you don’t fit in the company’s culture or if you subtly irk someone at the top, at the wrong time, in the wrong way… you’re gone. Working hard, staying late, being a positive energy to others doesn’t matter. I believe working hard is part of it, but what’s really important is fitting the company culture, having a great communicative relationship with the people who can let you go, play the correct politics, and you’ll stay.

Also here are a few other things I’ve learned from last year:

Save. You can be gone at any moment. Therefore, prepare for the worst because you should never think your job is secure. Unless you own the company, your job isn’t secure.

Trust no one. I love many of my co-workers, even the person that let me go… I’ve learned a lot from them, I learned a lot about them, and I’ve given them a lot of myself to them. However, with that said, I’ve learned you can’t trust anybody. You are a team, but at the same time you must be able to take a step back and live a different life outside of your co-working space.

Learn to control my manic depression & PTSD a little better. I don’t know how I can do this part, but I do think a lot of what happened was due to how I dealt with my mental issues. Though I never blamed my mental health issues on bad work performance… I did have strange spurts of creative energy that would go in waves. Others can’t handle it sometimes.

My personality is not for everybody. I think people who really get me can undertake my child-like wonderment. There is a reason why my interns and other creatives stick by me and give me their best work … and it’s not because of money. I have none.

I believe they stick by me and give me 150% of their time because people who are young at heart, people who are truly creative, understand that there might be something special and genuine in my brain.

Woah. Isn’t the title of this post called Acceptance?

Alright, let me get back on track and talk about Acceptance.

Though, I will admit, writing everything above is helping me deal with everything I’m going through at the moment. Let me explain…

Sometimes I write my professional thoughts here: tutorials and theories all related to how anyone can grow their brand on social media. This means I’ve written case studies about how to create viral organic Facebook posts all the way to creating viral ads. I wrote these articles to tell random in-bound business folk what I’ve accomplished… making me seem as if I know what I’m doing in the direction of my career.

However, I think I’m done writing tutorials and theories here on this blog. I’ll write all of that mumbo jumbo “smarty-pants” lingo on where it belongs… I’m saying if you want “knowledge” then head to my LinkedIn.

From now on, I’m using this blog as more of a place to calm myself. This is where I’ll continue to talk about relationships, my own mental health, car accidents, family matters, and anything that just needs to be said… for me.

It’s what I used to do and it is the one thing I miss doing. I haven’t written just for myself, with no regard of what others thought, in a very long time.

I’m going to warn you that I haven’t written in sometime. As a way to get back into the groove of things, I’m going to write about a theory I have when it comes to Instagram. This may not be the best written piece I’ve ever done. There might be grammatical errors, who knows. It’s all about getting back into the groove of things. Here goes nothing…

I believe that 2018 is the year of Instagram.

I understand – Facebook is making a massive push to popularize Facebook watch. However, a successful Facebook watch page comprises of professionally made video content: we’re talking HD quality, we’re talking about engaging stories where each video lasts more than two minutes and thirty seconds, and we’re talking about pages that can posts these types of videos consistently.

This is the watch’s algorithm: must be followed for your page to be successful. You can see this first hand as Facebook watch has partnered with brands like NFL, reality television syndications, buzzfeed, and other big brands who can create these high-production quality videos consistently.

Therefore, Facebook watch is for the serious video creator who has the resources and team to create these high quality story-esq videos.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with what Facebook is doing. But, if you’re a new creator trying to start out, I really don’t think Facebook watch is a friendly place to upload your content. 2015-2017 was the year for Facebook, but now that Facebook watch’s new algorithm is taking a hold of the reigns…

I’ve come to the conclusion that Instagram will be the place for new creators. It’s the platform of 2018. It is the platform where new creators can obtain a loyal, engaged fan base… fast.